In the beginning of this century Mississippi was considered a
"culturally-deprived" area by the Western-oriented intellects of
the United States. Only 50 years later word spread that this was
where the music of America would be defined and develop. This
"culturally-deprived" area gave birth to the blues, and later to
Jazz.
In Israel today, half the population comes from Arab countries. They
are considered an uncultured people, that is lacking culture. The
story goes that in the early fifties before the big emigration from
Morocco, now the first or second largest ethnic group in Israel, Golda
Meir (prime minister of Israel in the 70's) said: "bring them here and
we will educate them". The answer she received was: "Do you want to
educate a man who knows all the writings of Maimonides by heart?".
(Maimonides is one the most important thinkers and law makers of
middle-age Spain Judaism). There are plenty of quotations from
politicians as well as thinkers from those dark ages, from Ben Gurion
to Bialik, truly embarrassing, not that different from ethnic racism
in other countries.
These Jews were quickly defined as Orientals, sent to the worst parts
of the countries, depriving them from the right to decide for themselves,
condemning them to a life where attaining food was their main goals.
After fifty years they became culturally deprived.
In literature we find a large group of writers from Iraq, many born in
the twenties, however some in the thirties (for example: Shimon Balass,
Sami Michael, Eli Amir), and then none born in the forties and fifties.
The sixties don't seem to fare better, but it may be too early to decide.
Those Iraqis born in the 20's received their education in a
culturally-embroiled Baghdad, were already writing in Arabic before they
came to Israel. Most of them switched to Hebrew in the fifties and
sixties. This fact didn't change their situation. In a country where
the Arab-Jewish population is around fifty per cent of the population
this literature is considered an "ethnic" literature as if written
by a people living on another planet. A parallel situation happened to
the Jews coming from the other Arab countries. In spite of them being
put in the same basket each Arab country has a different story, and the
Jews within it have a different story to tell. At the other side of the
rope are the Ashkenazi Jews, most of whom came from Eastern Europe,
from one of the most culturally deprived countries, Poland. The level
of illiteracy there was higher than in any Arab country. Here in Israel
they became the Western culture, the others being the Eastern (while
they were considered East-Europeans). They established and built all
the institutions in Israel. Since then they have told their story. This
is the story of Zionism, a movement that could see everything but what
it was directly in front of his eyes. First they didn't see the Arabs
("we didn't know there were Arabs"), later they didn't see that those
Arab were becoming a people. They didn't see the Sephardim (the Jews
who came from Arab countries), and now they are not able to see that
these Jews have a past, a culture, and a literature, mostly that these
Jews and Arabs have a different story to tell, a different narrative,
as to what happened in the past, specially in the last one hundred
years.
Israel is a democratic country so nobody can silence a writer, but they
can shut their ears, not hear what we are saying. The major publishing
houses have only Ashkenazi (Jews from Europe) as editors, even
well-known Sephardic writers receive strange rejection letters stating
that the reason for not accepting their books for publication is not
literary but a different reason. I have received a few of these
letters. You can enter this race if your book tells the story of
the Ashkenazi over the Sephardi, or if it can be read that way, that
is a book in which you criticize the primitivism of these Arab-Jews.
If fifty years ago some of your readers agreed with the basis of your
narrative, second and third generation Sephardim today are convinced
that in Iraq, Morocco or Libya the Jews had no culture at all.
I emigrated to Israel from northern Morocco in 1972. I was 13 years old
then and I was already way into this situation. In the beginning I
considered myself an European coming to the East, with all the arrogance
of this attitude. I didn't quite understand the joke or compliment:
"you don't look like a Moroccan", while I looked around and didn't see
any tennis courts, saw that Tel Aviv was a smaller city than Tangier.
My brother died a year later, one month after the beginning of the Yom
Kippur war, and we went to live in a big house with my grandmother who
was not an easy person.
This is when I lost myself for years. Probably, in the process, I
became a poet. I couldn't remember anything that happened to me before
the age of 12. It was like being taken out from a movie after the first
fifteen minutes, being transported to another hall, but not really
knowing it. I couldn't make a sense of the first part and couldn't
understand the second part.
When I was 30, in 1990 I was having hearing problems, needed an
operation. I didn't want to through this operation, so I decided on
treatment through imagery. This is a series of exercises in which
you are asked to visualize different events, real or imaginary. Like,
for example, being in a calm sea and watching the algae move. The
important thing is what you see. In this exercise it may be a dog
trying to castrate you (I saw some of those), then the therapist will
do more exercises to try and understand who this dog is and why. These
treatments opened the door to my childhood, starting to revive memories.
However, even today, I have only momentary flashes of my childhood.
Even after making a trip back to my hometown in 1996, I cannot
reconstruct a whole day in my life in Tetuan.
In my previous long poem published in Ygdrasil (March 1998) "Self
Portrait Of The Poet In A Family Mirror", written in 1990, I began
to understand something was wrong with Western culture in Israel and
with the Sephardim. It was only when I wrote "The Immigrant's Lament",
in 1992, in tears during the entire writing, that I touched my soul.
The movie started to make sense, my life started to make sense, I
could embrace myself, I could tell myself that I may not be that
successful but that I could love myself. I could also tell the story,
I could be angry, I could love the world again, I could forgive. I
think that after more than fifteen years of writing I received the
real prize - that is writing something that can make sense of the
puzzle of the writer's own life.
The same prejudices still reign in cultural circles in Israel. I have
not been able to make any changes here. It was only this year that a
publishing house in Israel (Bimat Kedem) was established to publish
the books of the Sephardim. They will publish my first novel next
year. This, I think, is a tragedy within itself, although it is a
necessity and I hope it works.
This long poem has become the most well-known of my works, parts it
published six or seven times, parts read many times on Israeli
television. I even heard that it has been given to cancer patients
who seem calmed by it. Russian immigrants have identified with my
experience, and people from everywhere, even Israeli-born have
been able to understand their parents better after reading it. The
institutions have not shown interest, but this seems only logical.
The word 'immigrant', itself, is a threat to Israeli culture. This
word is only used for people immigrating from one country to another,
not for Jews coming to Israel. There is a special word for immigrant
in Hebrew: 'oleh', meaning a person who goes up, who ascends. Even
if someone leaves Israel he is called a 'yored' - someone who goes
down, descends.
This is the first time "The Immigrant's Lament" is being presented to
the English speaking reader (part has previously been published in
Spanish). It is presented in almost entire form (a portion refuses
translation).
I want to than Klaus J. Gerken for giving me this opportunity.
I would also like to thank Rochelle Mass for helping me with the
translation.
I can be contacted at moben@internet-zahav.net
thank you all
Moshe Benarroch

THE IMMIGRANT'S LAMENT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*
In Morocco I was the center
of all the parties
a social phenomenon
always surrounded by friends
until I came to Israel
and ended up in a corner
the corner of all the parties
I stopped going
always on the outside
the outsider
When I came
I became a poet.
*
I can see you
Moshe
I can see you my friend Moshe
a twelve and a half year old boy
sensitive and lazy
I love you Moshe
I see you after the Bar Mitzvah
your mother announcing that
tonight we are leaving
I see you with the suitcases
always looking for something secure
suddenly nothing is secure
I see you in Ceuta
waiting for your father to sell the buildings
for peanuts
the Arab took out a knife
before he finally paid in Spain
I see you on the ship
on the way to Algeciras
I see you dreaming
dreaming of the land of Israel
dreaming a dream
a wonderful dream
with a temple
a dream full of light
I see you full of joy
traveling through Spain
in Valencia, in Barcelona
see you full of happiness and full of hope
that the land of Israel will heal
your brother Ari who is dying
see you in a rented taxi
you are wonderful Moshe
trying to be loved by everybody
tired and lazy
but always nice
I see you arriving at Marseille
entering the bus there
your father is angry
at the manager of the transit hotel
the sewer is stuck
shit is flowing everywhere
everything is wonderful
but there is shit everywhere
you cannot know what is awaiting you
I see you Moshe
landing in the land of Israel
half-drunk in the airport
you don't understand what is happening
but you don't kiss the land
or more precisely the asphalt
I see you
a week in the boarding school
of Aliyat Hanoar
a week you cried without stopping
I see the nice tutor
coming from the boy scouts
saying you you are too big to cry
and you cry even more
that it's going to pass
and you cry even more
I see you Moshe
and my heart goes out to you
I love you Moshe
and suffer with you there
in Zichron-Yaacov
when will you forget Moshe
when will forgive
a week later you mother came to save you
took you to the secondary school in Pardes-Hanna
they didn't want you in 9th grade
in spite of skipping a class
because of your age
and your mother "why should he lose a year?"
insisting and insisting
till you finished the final exams
at sixteen and a half
and then waited a year
studying physics and mathematics at the Hebrew University
she pushed you to this too
always pushing
you wanted to walk slowly
It took you so long to learn to go slow
my heart goes out to you Moshe
Moshe the immigrant
Moshe looking for redemption
Moshe disappointed
Moshe crying
Moshe becoming religious
Moshe a half-year atheist
Moshe who doesn't get along with girls
Moshe believing in reincarnation
Moshe studying mathematics
Moshe studying literature
Moshe wanting to be a poet
Moshe running after literary editors
Moshe editing a literary review
Moshe writing a novel in 3 weeks
Moshe writing thousands of poems
Moshe writing ten novels nobody publishes
Moshe always trying to be loved by people
Moshe after people who don't understand his sensitivity
Moshe who wants to be loved for his poems
Moshe my heart goes out to you truly
Moshe I love you
in all your searching
in all your impossible searching
Moshe who knows
everything will have an explanation
one day.
Two things always
writing and listening to music
music
especially after you visited your cousin in Madrid
arrived religious and returned a heretic
there you bought your first Van Morrison record
since then you bought them all
and thousands more
always music and writing
to save yourself
from going insane
in this crazy world
my heart goes out to you
Moshe the poet
Moshe the true poet
I love you at last
with all your travels
with all your suffering
I would caress you
in every step of your life
caress and kiss you
me who hated you so much
who suffered so much from you
now I love you
all the you's
you ever were.
Twenty years twenty
passed since those two weeks
that changed your life
the last week of august
and the first week of September
nineteen seventy two
everyday changed your life
making you a poet
writing in Hebrew
in your land
and not a writer
writing in a foreign language
in a foreign land
twenty years
in which you tried so hard to escape
not loving yourself
not wanting to be like the others
writing about suicide
angry at God
twenty
with asthma and without asthma
with allergies and skin sores
angina and digestive pain
crazy eating, women problems
trying to escape reality
trying to escape Israeli society
traveling abroad as much as possible
and coming back
to Paris, specially to Paris
dreaming about living there
marrying a French woman
emigrating to France, what else,
but she, what else,
just not to go back to France,
each one his own escape
always weak in front of women
and difficult to make changes
you are still here
with all the oximorons and all the morons
possible inside your head
feeling the most here and most there that is possible
so close to the land of Israel
and so far away from the State of Israel
I love you Moshe
and I enjoy writing it
at last I love you
with all that you did
and all that you failed
and all that you fucked up
and all that you are ridiculous
and with all your running
away from here and escaping again
and again escaping
and still, staying here
I love you
Moroccan, Spanish, Sephardi,
European, looks Ashkenazi,
Western, Eastern, Mediterranean,
Middle-eastern, Palestinian, African, French
with all the things you are and aren't
I love you crazy and insane and most logical
but then it is you
it is all the you that made me
and I love you.
*
I embrace you
go to the world
love it
give it all you have to give
even what it can't accept
give the world all your love
all you have learned
and your experience
in all your previous lives
it won't accept
but it needs you
the world needs you
it needs your love
give it
but don't expect any reward
go to the world
go to god
go
don't be afraid anymore
I caress you goodbye
go your way
I kiss you goodbye
go.
*
This land in which I was not born
said the immigrant
this land in which my children were born
now I leave it
like a man leaves his lover
who cheated on him
like a man leaves the mother of his children
in pain in joy in suffocation in liberation
that's the way I leave this land
in which I did not plant a tree
in which I did not seek revenge
and if you say this is a descent
I will tell you, said that same immigrant,
it is a descent meant to go up
and if this is your face
I am an ass
and if these are your legs
I am a wheelchair
everyday in my land is suffocation
and everyday abroad is oxygen
I travel twice a year abroad
to have enough oxygen to breath here
and not suffocate
in this ghetto, in this mellah,
this land in which I was not born
my children were born here
this land
didn't rejoice toward me
and didn't give me joy
nor did I rejoice toward her
in spite of not having another land
beside her
not having
but, said the man angry with tears in his eyes,
It is impossible for things
to be done infinitely
just for lack
of alternatives.
*
My childhood,
a black flower I did not pick
Tetuan mountains around her
Arab children shouting
"awadel yahoud"
and throwing stones at us
on the way to school
hugging the girls in class
the old Arab who touched my chin
the Arab beggar to
whom I always gave a coin
my mother always knowing what's good for me
the smacks I got from her when I lit matches
and almost burnt the house
hugging the son of the Rabbi at ten
Saturday night at grandma and grandpa's home
and shouting and noise the whole family
my cousin getting on my nerves
I beat my cousins
the vacation house in Restinga and tennis
the motorcyclist who broke his hand
the toy store my daddy had
dad brings me a red Mercedes
me and my brother breaking it with a screwdriver
my sick brother who died at 8
the scissors I threw at my sister
my brother Levi disappears
and we're looking for him again
the recurrent dream of the falling lamps
private lessons in Arabic
the giant house made of granite
Levi and me climbing the walls
Levi and me not going to the solfege class
and going to play soccer
the cakes we bought after the Shabbat prayer
my uncle hitting me when I touched a moving car
the beating stick of the teacher
breaking the stick after class
the three constant friends of the class
the club I started with my cousin Levi
mama and dad travel to the U.S.
to take care of my brother
I am left with grandma and grandpa
in the vacation home playing and swimming
the one handed French tourist
suffocation
asphyxiation
suffocation
my childhood
a black flower I did not pick
a black flower I did not smell
I did not remember
I did not forget
I did not love
I did not appreciate
I did not hate
I did not understand
my childhood
I don't miss you
nor your smells
nor your wealth
everything was asphyxiating
pressuring
my childhood
I don't miss the famous Alliance school
maker of students in the universities
of Strassbourg, Madrid, Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv
I don't miss the Jewish community
nor the family always knowing what's best for the others
nor the feeling of superiority for being true Sephardim
nor the smell of Ladino nor the ballooning wealth
nor the imagined honor of the family
nor the synagogue I was always forced to go
my childhood my lost childhood
my insensitive childhood
where are you, where did you go
if you ever came.
*
Every Friday evening
all the grandchildren
gathered on the steps
of Papa Levi's giant store
and waited to be called one by one
to receive money for Shabbat
He used to call first
the grandchildren bearing his name
sons of his sons
then the grandchildren bearing his name
sons of his daughters
who received less
and then the others, me among them,
and he called me Mosselito,
who received even less,
and we all went and compared
how much we received
and I always was jealous of the others
who received more then me
and the same day I wasted everything,
they said
I had holes in my hands.
*
On Shabbats my grandfather used to sit
in the middle of the living room
his thumb on his mouth
every few hours going to the bathroom
to smoke a cigarette
they called it Shabbat diarrhea.
*
My grandfather was very rich
every five years he traded his Plymouth
but not the chauffeur
who stayed with him
his whole life
Just before he emigrated to Israel
he caught emphysema and died
didn't do what I did
died staked to machines
physician's machines
who keep the angel of death unemployed.
*
Out of four who came to Israel from Tetuan
three left
all the cousins now
in Paris, Madrid and New York
one by one they left
married abroaders
and left
they understood
this was not for them
where everyone categorizes them
as something they are not
forced to defend something
they couldn't identify with
when they say
you are a Moroccan
or an oriental
and you have to defend the Moroccans
to whom you can't feel affiliated
you have no choice but to become arrogant
with the Ashkenazi especially
for their arrogance and their cultural ignorance
to the eastern Jews and their customs
and they always repeat that same sentence
half funny half sad
but you don't look Moroccan!
I once said to someone
after this sentence
"yeah, that's true, I had an operation
I took of the tail
and now I don't look Moroccan."
*
In front of my house
with the granite walls
there was a mountain
full of trees
in front of my house
the police stood
called consul Murphy street
in front of my house
my only home
where I drown the years
that made me
till I arrived in Israel
to the years that broke me
since the third of September
nineteen seventy two
I collect the pieces
I try to find some logic
to the puzzle
with my words
I try to find warmth
human warmth that always scares me
I collect the pieces
and stay an orphan
in my words.
*
I had everything in Morocco
I had everything
my grandfather was
the richest man in town
but I was always anxious
a sensitive boy
in a pressure-cooker family
I had everything in Morocco
except what I needed
air to breathe time to think
time to create
to be myself
to be a child
and dream.
*
What's going to happen with you
Moroccan prince
what's going to happen to you
spoiled child
who never made his bed
what's going to happen with you
in the land of Israel
when you won't be able to shout
Fatima bring me a glass of water
Fatima I am hungry
what's going to become out of you
Moroccan prince
here in the land of Israel
where everyone has to work.
*
The father of my grandfather Maimon
used to ask my father everyday
when, when is it happening
(the State of Israel)
and he answered
it is coming
just coming
he died in 1946
he had a grocery store
before dawn
he used to put bags of food
near the houses of the poor
so they wouldn't know
and wouldn't be ashamed
he never made any money
like my grandfather Moshe
but thanks to him
and to his deeds
I live today in Jerusalem.
*
My grandfather died of diabetes
when I was four or five
I remember his baldness
covering his head
like a dream
he walks in the house
he is ill in bed
after his death
my father grew a beard
my grandfather
made a lot of money
and lost a lot of money
alternately
he willed me a building
so I'd have the money to study
because I was named after him.
I was the grandson of my grandfather.
They say I am like him.
*
My Grandfather Moshe
stood with suitcases
ready to travel to Argentina
to head a milk company.
He was going for six months
then the family would
follow.
My grandmother and her mother
stood in front of him and
cried
wo wo he is going and won't be back
wo wo
he is going forever.
They stood and cried
my grandfather dropped the suitcases
and said
I stay here
and that's how I wasn't born in Argentina.
*
Where is my house now
where are the walls where I grew up now
who is in my house now
the house my grandfather built
built every stone in it
the house in which I played with my brother
and run in its corridors
who lives in my house now
Arabs live in my home now
and I
live in an Arab house
the immigrant who lived here
may be writing poems now.
*
Years
Years you didn't remember your childhood
and after you
remembered
years
you didn't want to write about it
you didn't want to write
what everyone expects
from a Moroccan poet
you knew every poem
about Tetuan and about the couscous
will be published
and that's why
you didn't write the poems
inside of you
years you walk
with a tree that has no roots
years
the roots
are in the sky.
*
I went to three meetings of the Bnei Akiva boy scouts
and heard many time
hebraya hebraya hebraya
and didn't understand
all the aya aya aya
I never understood the togetherness
of the sabras
not in the scouts
nor in the school
nor in the army
a lone wolf
in the company of snakes.
*
the name of my grandmother is Mercedes
her son the doctor
always buys Mercedes
He was the gynecologists of
some of the king's wives.
In the early seventies
a Zionist minister
of Morocco
told him it was time to leave
He went to Madrid
then to Nice,
tried a few times to get a job
in an Israeli hospital
and failed.
He didn't make his Aliyah
didn't leave
and wasn't disappointed.
*
My father never made it here
he didn't want to come either
he wanted Canada, Spain, Venezuela
but my mother said that from Morocco
she would only leave to the land of Israel
he always said this won't suit him
and he was right.
I saw him
failing from business to business
until he got emphysema
asphyxiated from the neglect
of the Ashkenazi bureaucracy
and died.
*
The head of the absorption center
at the time of the government of
the Yiddishe mama
and this was in 1973
and not in the fifties
said to my parents
that we don't have a high enough
cultural level
to live in Jerusalem
my parents
went back enraged
to the small apartment
and decided to leave the country
it happened every two months
for four years
the winds blew to the immigrating direction
I think this caused a genetic change in me
and it happens twice a day.
I would like to meet the little principal
the son of a bitch
and spit on him.
*
For years I used to walk and discuss
in my head
I am religious I am not religious
I am secular I am not secular
discuss with imaginary Rabbis
and with atheists in my head
for years without concluding
my head was a theological soccer camp.
*
Every Yom Kippur eve
I redeemed all my sins
when the Rabbi came
to slaughter the chickens
we raised a few days earlier
me and my brothers
and we cried trying to escape
and the Rabbi says
ze kaparateja
this is your redemption
and beats the chicken
and says again ze kaparateja
and blood is everywhere
and sand on the floor to dry the blood
and this way
a chicken per person
he slaughters
and this way every Yom Kippur
in every slaughter
I redeem all my sins.
*
I shout my right
to be different
to be Sephardi
to be traditional
in the Israeli society
not right and not left
I demand my right
to stop feeling
strange and detached
I the Israeli.
Translated from the hebrew by Moshe Benarroch and Rochelle Mass.

A New Age: The Centipede Network Of Artists, Poets, & Writers
An Informational Journey Into A Creative Echonet [9310]
(C) CopyRight "I Write, Therefore, I Develop" By Paul Lauda

Come one, come all! Welcome to Newsgroup alt.centipede. Established
just for writers, poets, artists, and anyone who is creative. A
place for anyone to participate in, to share their poems, and
learn from all. A place to share *your* dreams, and philosophies.
Even a chance to be published in a magazine.
The original Centipede Network was created on May 16, 1993.
Created because there were no other networks dedicated to such
an audience, and with the help of Klaus Gerken, Centipede soon
started to grow, and become active on many world-wide Bulletin
Board Systems.
We consider Centipede to be a Public Network; however, its a
specialized network, dealing with any type of creative thinking.
Therefore, that makes us something quite exotic, since most nets
are very general and have various topics, not of interest to a
writer--which is where Centipede steps in! No more fuss. A writer
can now access, without phasing out any more conferences, since
the whole net pertains to the writer's interests. This means
that Centipede has all the active topics that any creative
user seeks. And if we don't, then one shall be created.
Feel free to drop by and take a look at newsgroup alt.centipede

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All poems copyrighted by their respective authors. Any reproduction of
these poems, without the express written permission of the authors, is
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YGDRASIL: A Journal of the Poetic Arts - Copyright (c) 1993, 1994, 1995,
1996, 1997 & 1998 by Klaus J. Gerken.
The official version of this magazine is available on Ygdrasil's
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